Kelley: It's five minutes to midnight; does anyone care?

Last month's announcement by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that the symbolic Doomsday Clock had jumped to 11:55 p.m. came and went with scant notice by the press.

Back in 1947, when founding editor Hyman Goldsmith asked Maryl Langsdorf — artist and wife of a Manhattan Project physicist — to design the cover for the June issue of the Bulletin, she came up with a startling image.

She used the minute hand of a watch-face closing in on midnight to symbolize both impending apocalypse as well as a military-type countdown. In 1947, her timepiece, instantly dubbed the Doomsday Clock, showed 11:53 p.m.

During the past 65 years, peril was illustrated by the big hand moving closer or farther away from the witching hour, in line with the "Bulletin's" analysis of world events.

On Jan. 31, 1950, after intense debate and recommendations by his secretary of state, secretary of defense, and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, President Harry S. Truman rendered one of the most sweeping decisions of his or any presidency.

As the world would learn that day, the United States would proceed with work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called "super bomb." In their report on nuclear weapons, the American Catholic bishops — who were guilty of only venial hyperbole — warned, "We are the first generation since Genesis with the capability of destroying God's creation."

In 1953, in the closest approach to midnight since its inception, the Doomsday Clock clicked on 11:58 p.m. — as the United States and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear devices within nine months of each other.

As beeping Sputniks I and II circled the planet in 1957, even more striking than the loss of face was the chilling realization that the intercontinental missiles launching the satellites could just as easily boost a nuclear warhead and aim it toward American soil.

In 1964, as the first baby boomers trotted off to college and shivered as they snickered at "Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," the Doomsday Clock swung back to 11:53 p.m., once again. The Bulletin pointed to China's acquisition of nuclear weapons as well as conflicts brewing in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Vietnam as its risk assessment reasons.

Cold War paranoia seemed to evaporate, however, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and by 1991, the big hand of the Doomsday Clock had reached all the way back to 17 minutes before the witching hour — the clock's earliest setting since its inception — reflecting the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the announcement of further unilateral cuts in tactical and strategic nuclear weapons by the superpowers.

After climate change and biohazard were added, however, the minute hand would eventually creep back up to 11:53 p.m., but nobody seemed to care.

Ask a present-day millennial what he or she knows about the Doomsday Clock and you will be told that the Doomsday Clock (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1k1s9n16fs) is the opening track of a 2007 Smashing Pumpkins album. The song, which is introduced by a rat-tat-tatting drum solo, also appeared twice in the 2007 "Transformers" movie.

Despite the planet being confronted, according to Arizona State University Earth and Space Exploration professor Lawrence Krauss, "with clear and present dangers of nuclear proliferation and climate change, and the need to find sustainable and safe sources of energy, world leaders are failing to change business as usual."

The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years, the world is doomed to a warmer climate, harsher weather, droughts, famine, water scarcity, rising sea levels, loss of island nations and increasing ocean acidification.

Jayantha Dhanapala, former United Nations under-secretary-general for disarmament affairs, points out that "failure to act on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by leaders in the United States, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel and North Korea to cut off production of nuclear weapons material continues to leave the world at risk."

So why was the movement of the Doomsday Clock to a mere five minutes before midnight met with such an underwhelming response?

The agenda-setters in the news business think that we think a Doomsday Clock is boring.

While the mainstream media did manage to turn away from covering celebrities (who are famous for merely being famous) to highlight the Arab Spring, Occupy movements and/or political protests in Russia, they did so only after social networking sites had already created a buzz.